Orientation

My days have been jam packed of ICU orientations since I arrived here. On Wednesday night we had a welcome meeting followed by a welcome party at Global House where we introduced ourselves and met all the people in the dorm.

Thursday was the Matriculation Ceremony in the school chapel, in 36 degrees and no air conditioning. Awesome! We each had to stand up and answer to the register, it was a very long ceremony (there were over 200 of us) and the heat was almost unbearable, I was happy to get to the newly opened, AIR CONDITIONED, dining hall afterwards. We were able to try some of the food they offer, it was good but I think I ate too much! 

After the lunch we headed back to Global House briefly, they had arranged to take us for our to sort out our alien registration and health insurance but this had also been arranged by the International Office so we ended up going with them. We took a bus into the town and waited for about 2 hours, maybe more, to get these forms completed. Our cards wont be ready until the 16th of September but they give you the option of purchasing an additional form which can act as a card until then, I think its about 300yen (£2.30). I got two, one for opening a bank account and one for buying a 携帯(keitai - mobile phone). We stopped by a コンビニ(conbini - convinience store) and got a snack and then headed back to ICU. When we got back the Global House guys took us on a shopping tour and we stopped at Jマート (Jmart) and I bought a bike!

Mines the green one :)

　Then we headed to ドンキホーテ (donkihote), which is this ridiculous shop that sells EVERYTHING. Literally everything you can think of they sell it here. They sold bikes but they were more expensive than Jmart so I was happy I'd got mine there. After the shopping tour we came back to Global House for a meeting.

Friday was the Japanese Language Programme placement test. It lasted from 9-12.30 and it was super hard! Afterwards I went for lunch in the new dinning hall with a few people from Global House. I had chicken curry and it was awesome. The portions are quite big and the prices start at about 300yen. I think I might go there quite often. I was really tired so the afternoon activities really bugged me, we had some explanations of the cirriculum and stuff like that then I headed to my JASSO meeting at 4 and club orientation at 4.30. Club orientation was fun, each club had the chance to present themselves; some of them sang, some of them had videos, some of them danced. It was very entertaining but I was tired so I left early and missed out on some of the ones I wanted to see. 

At 8 Global House had a party with 4th Womens Dorm, where we met the members and talked to them and played a few games. After that I went to bed, finally!